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[Track time: 0:43:54]
CARVER LIVING NEWSPAPER PROJECT: ORAL HISTORY
Interview with Nellie Weatherless
Interviewers Lucy Anne Lucas, Carver resident and Trina Davis, VCU student
Date: April 16, 2000
(Interviewers comments and questions are indicated by bold text)
Who got the questions?
I don't got the questions.
Lord have mercy. I tell you what..You give us your name and where you used to live at.
And how many brothers and sisters you had. And what was around you at that time and
all.
My name is Nellie Weatherless. 1223 West Clay Street.
That's the block down there between Norton and Harrison, right?
Yes. I went to Maggie Walker High School in 1948. And I left there in 1951 when they added
the 12th grade on. See then when they added the 12th grade on I had a high school education, but I
didn't finish at Walker, because I played basketball four years.
What about work?
You could get a job anywhere during those times. But when I got a job, I put an ad in the paper.
That was the telephone for black women at that time. But you didn't want was in the paper
because you'd only make fifty cents an hour. I got a job out of the paper — you know, I put an ad
in the paper and they call in on Sunday, and they take all them down and go see about them on
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And they paid 75 cents an hour. That was in 1952. When I
started to work.
Tell me at that time, how many grocery stores did you have around here in the area?
You had Mr. Green, Mr. Simms, that's Norton and Clay, and then you had Hancock and Clay.
What was that man with the hand? Patio. No Padow's. That used to be down at Hancock and
Clay. Yeah, Patio was there. And then June Murray was up there by Marshall at Hancock and
Marshall. June Murray's Joe Louis Inn. And then they had, what was it, the Electric Power
Company was down at Harrison and Clay.
Yeah, they're still there.
We had Red Circle Store at Harrison and Leigh, Rec Circle Store and Doctor Jackson's black
drugstore.
And we also had another drugstore at Hancock and Clay.
That was Doctor Hurdle. He had one son. Because I used to go down there for my Grandma and
get the medicine. There were Hayjoker and Tomlin & Sons plumbing places on Marshall Street.
And Richmond Ice Company. Harry's Fish Market. Harry's Fried Fish over on the corner.
Everybody remembers that. And that home brewing company was at Harrison and Clay. Where
they made the beer on one side and distributed on the other. Trucks carried it out.
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Through Way was across the street. That's where the Clay House is now.
Yeah. In the same old building. The whiskey store was at Harrison and Broad on the corner. The
RF&P was where VCU just builded the Siegel Center. Yeah, that used to be RF&P Railroad,
where they unloaded stuff and let the trucks carry them. That was the way they'd distribute.
Trains were running then. Trains were on the other side of the street.
On the other side of the street over there they used to have trucks back up to the place.
Both sides of the street come to think of it. The tracks are still up there. On that other side of the
street across Harrison if they ain't pulled them up.
That's the Cancer Center or something over there now.
And then they had the Ford Motor Company at Hancock and Broad. You know they had the Ford
Car Company there. And then they left and went to Broad.
Yeah, they moved half a block from Hancock to Broad. And right next to that right now
VCU built an arts center.
Yeah, that's all VCU now. Wasn't it right there at Harrison and Broad in back of where the
whiskey store used to be used to be Merrill's restaurant. ,And all them little stores. People's drug
store used to be on Grace Street. And my Grandmom used to go to Lovitt's over there on the 900
block of West Grace to buy the medicine. A little store, it was just like Safeway.
Yes it was. We used to rest on the steps there. Do you remember the trolley used to come
up Clay Street?
Yeah, the street car.
It used to go all the way up to Newtowne, right?
No, it started at Hancock and Broad and went to Sanders(?) and Broad when I rode it.
Okay.
But that was before I growed up. I was a child of 8 or 9. People used to give me their pass or 75
cents to go to the store. They didn't have no money. They'd give you their pass and you ride it,
and they don't let you ride it but two times, you know, all the way down to 7th Street and then
make you go on home. That was before the buses. Then they got buses on Broad Street. And
then they completely cut all of that out around there because there weren't no more black people
living around there.
It looked to me at one time that it used to go either the Riverview or something used to go
down Clay Street and back on up Harrison.
It did. Yeah, the Riverview bus.. It was the only bus around there. All the other buses were on
Broad Street all the time.
And then finally they give us a Leigh Street bus.
Yeah. The Riverview used to come and used to turn at Hancock Street and whirl around and
come on down Harrison.
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It sure did. Because if you get on that Riverview bus downtown you never could get off at
Harrison and Clay. I had to walk all the way from Broad.
Yeah. And when they started going to Hancock and Clay and coming on around there and
coming on back across Broad Street.
During that time, most of the neighbors we had, it looked like everybody had children.
Yeah. Everybody had kids.
And it wasn't just one or two.
No. Because people that you see they see your children or you see their children, most people
correct the children. Then you tell em about it, they correct em again. When I growed up my
grandmother raised us. Two girls, I was the oldest, and two boys. A sister and three brothers.
And my grandmama raised us, not my mama. But my daddy worked in back of us. He had a
garage where his truck was for Hayjoker where he worked for forty something years. And we
seen him every morning. There was the Tomlin Brothers, they had a plumbing and plumbing
equipment place like Hayjoker and my daddy worked.
Where was Tomlin's?
Right there up by the lost city in the 1300 block. And then they had what was it Freeman Market
up there at Bowe and Marshall. Freeman Marks, where they made men's clothes.
That's right. Tomlin and Sons was across the street from Hayjoker's.
Yeah. And then Freeman Marks was up there, then up there where they had the British factory
and Piccolo's Pickles, where they used to make pickles. Out of watermelon. I don't remember
the name of the place, the British factory, where they make baskets now. They had a watermelon
place. Miss Emma's husband, Mickelburg, Daniel Mickelburg, he used to work with his brother
down where they used to make the watermelon things. We used to go up there, they used to give
us plenty of watermelon. They had all them stores. Pantry Pride up above that, close to the
tracks. Sears & Roebuck. Hydes. All them was up on Broad Street. And there was a White
Tower up there across the corner from that State Planners Bank. I had money in that. And there
was a drug store right across the street there. And Firestone, where they fixed cars on that other
corner at Lombardy and Broad.
Post Office been up there the whole time, I believe?
Yeah, always as long as I can remember the Post Office been there.
And the Firehouse.
Where was it at?
A couple doors up from Wright's drug store?
Oh, right across the White Tower, Yeah, yeah, Wright's Drugstore. There used to be a firehouse,
great big place, just like all of them is now. I don't know why they moved it.
It's a theatre thing now.
I know that now but I don't know why they moved the firehouse.
I know why that is. They moved it up there closer to Newtowne, up there behind Pleasant's
Hardware, back there on that little street.
Oh, that's where they moved it to. Because I know there was one up there behind Brook Avenue
and Lawrence. That's where the museum's at. Where they got all them old trucks and stuff.
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They moved that old one at put it down here on Leigh Street. They got that at Brook
Avenue and Leigh now.
Oh, at that fireplace.
Yeah, the firehouse that used to be there they moved it down to Leigh Street.
Oh, see I don't go over down there so I didn't know. I know they had all them old trucks there
because they used to have them like a museum up at Marshall Street. But that been a good while
ago. I used to get my hair fixed over on Brook Avenue with a lady who was a Jehovah's
Witness. She's dead now, but Miss. Witch's(?) son's wife knowed her. That's what I done to get
my hair fixed. At that beauty parlor it was five dollars. I done forgot her name. She was old.
Eighty five years old. She died.
I went down there one time. I don't remember what that lady's name was either. [
when I was fourteen or fifteen and got my hair done, and I think it lasted until...
Oh, I know who you talking about. Jude Blanks up on Marshall Street, I mean up on Leigh
Street, the 1300 block.
Yeah, that's it.
Jude Blanks was a dry goods store.
It sure was. We had Jude Blanks and...
{Schriaski's) was at Brook Avenue where the fire station is now.
And we used to have a 5 and 10 over on Grace Street.
I remember that.
Between the 5 and 10 and Jude Blanks, that's where we got everything we needed.
Well my grandmama got Converse's from down Schriaski's on Brook Avenue. Them shoes
didn't cost but a dollar and ninety nine cents. The tennies.
Yeah, and they lasted. They lasted a good while.
They lasted about two, three years. Because I got my leg amputated then and I wasn't hard on
those shoes. I had 65 pairs of shoes when they had to cut my leg off. And now I ain't got but six.
I just bought these for a hundred and forty dollars.
Oh my goodness.
Because they got arch support and stuff in them. For the leg.
Special needs, they got to make them special.
But I'm trying to think of some of these things. The gas place used to be down in the 700 block.
That gas tank thing.
That was Axtel Street.
Axtel, okay. Remember where the gas was before they had the electric. And remember we could
always tell when the gas was going down. The tank would go down.
Yeah, some days it was all the way down to the ground and other days it was all the way up
at the top.
And I remember when the water bill was sixty six cents, because I used to pay it for my mama.
At 1223 our water bill was sixty six cents. They didn't have no sewage and no taxes. They didn't
have none of that. And people paid you what you were worth. Every job I left I left for more
money. I had one year at [?] Food Service at 9th and Terpin, that's with VCU, in 1968, 5:30 to
6:30, and I made one damn dollar and ninety cents an hour. Did you hear what I said? They had
me and the cooks come out to work at 5:30. I remember one year they had two men cook from
11 to 7 and they got three dollars an hour. When I heard that I didn't return. I said here I am
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doing twice as much work as they're doing. Every job I ever had I left for more money. I cooked
for forty something years.
How did things change once they started this integration stuff? Change for you personally
that is?
In the sixties?
When it got to where you could go into the stores.
It ain't never bothered me to this day. Because I was raised, you got what I'm saying? I was
raised to tend to my own business. And do what you know right from wrong. We was raised like
that. It ain't never bothered me abouty no segregation. Because you got your own friends and
you got yours and I got mine.
That's true.
So it never bothered me.
That's very true.
It ain't never crossed my mind. Now these people who live here, all colors, they ain't never lived
as good as we did. The average person in here, no, and there are 240 people here. You think half
of these people got a front living room that look like this? Hell no, theirs is full of junk, that's all.
Oh I know what I didn't tell you. Up there across from Maggie Walker School was the Marine
and Navy induction center.
Really?
Yeah, at Lombardy and Leigh. That's were they inducted them into the service.
We used to call it the patent office. Or was it the Veteran's administration?
I don't know, I just know they inducted into the Marines and the Navy. Cause that's the first job
I ever had. I was working over there. Yeah, I worked up there doing everybody's job. I worked
for Jordan and Ray. And they had cafeterias in there. Bellwood, McGuire. Then they had a
pantry, you know where the Social Security Administration is at now? That used to be a pantry, I
used to work there you know doing parties and stuff. And Brewster's on Hull Street. Jordan and
Ray used to own all that. That's where I got the ad from out of the paper. Got that job, then I put
another ad in the paper and I got a job cooking down on the boat, you know I worked down at
the boat for 12 years.
Yeah, I knew you worked on a boat, but I didn't know for how long.
Yeah, I worked down there for 12 years.
I had forgotten all about the [?1 because I know my mama used to work up there for a
while in the cafeteria. But she stopped that when she started having babies. There were
nine of us. Let me see, what else can we remember from down there?
My grandmama used to wash clothes for people who lived down on Grace Street. You know
people used to wash shirts and stuff and used to put them on racks. And the other clothes you put
them in baskets and hang them around your arms. And I used to walk all through the tracks,
down Franklin Street, all around over there.
My mama had a maid over on Grace Street she used to do wash for.
My grandmama had two or three people she used to have wash clothes for her. My grandmama
had a stroke in 1943, I was ten years old. She came here and kept us. She used to wash for
Hayjoker when my daddy worked there. You know, the shirts and the pants. When she died, you
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know who kept washing them? I did, cause I washed them all the time. What was she doing with
this hand if it had a stroke in it? See I was washing and ironing all them people's clothes. She's
sitting there, watching me, "Tuck that in, tuck it out". See cause you listened to them people,
people don't listen to no 0 folks, people don't listen to no old people. Back when I come up I
ain't never had a beating in my life, that's why I remember and know everything. My brothers
used to get beat when they knocked the clothes off and knocked them under the table. But not
me. I know how to listen. I ain't never been nobody hardheaded. Yes sir. Ain't nobody ever
beating me up. If you do you're going away from me. I'll tell you.
During that time too our neighbors, we had school teachers living around us.
Yeah, Miss Eunice. And Lonnie across the street. He was going to college. What was his name. I
can't remember his name now. Real tall. Always acted like a sister to me. Lonnie Gorins.
How about Ms. Castor? What did she used to do?
I just told you. Ms. Castor used to be a school teacher. Her daughter's a schoolteacher now. One
of those girls that's a schoolteacher, your niece knows her. Crystaltown? One of them goes to
her. In the high school. She's named Mable. What's her name?
She named Mable Lightfoot.
Okay, she was named Mable Castor then. They had another child, a car killed him in the street.
Because you can see the rainbow. When I go over to town I remember that. And they didn't
allow my brother and them to go across the street to the store for anybody. Didn't allow them to
cross the street. That's how that child got killed. When it rained it looked like a rainbow in the
street.
Really? Where he got hit at?
Yeah. And when Allen Knight worked around there, he was the first black promoter I ever
knowed. On the radio and all that. Had all the shows. You never hear them talk to anybody but
him.
Who else did you have around that way?
Well, Jake, they lived at the post office. Remember the daddy? He worked at the post office.
Jake married a school teacher. She was the gym teacher for Maggie Walker by the time I
got there.
I didn't know who he married. Yeah, all them people had pretty good jobs.
Yeah, but we also had the poor among us, you know.
Yeah, but when I come up, the toilets were outdoors
That's true.
But then from that time, I don't know five, six years, or seven, or eight, they put them up under
the steps downstairs. That's where they put them. Where Ruby Wills lived at. I don't know
whether Norris had it or not, but where Ruby Wills lived at, you remember the kitchen upstairs
like we had upstairs, they had a bathroom there.
Really?
Yeah, Ruby Wills and them had a bathroom upstairs. I know because I been in it. Yeah, they had
a bathroom. They had two bedrooms and a hall room. And that was there bathroom. You know
with the bath? We had none of that up above. Up that further up we didn't have that. It all
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depended on different sets of people. Before we moved down there behind the High's at Stafford
and Abbott, white folks lived in them. Yeah, white people lived in those houses. Every house
that ever been around here you didn't build it from the ground, white folks lived in them.
See we lived in apartments. And there weren't much to them apartment.
No, nothing but a bathroom right where you go outdoors, and was on the side where you lived at
upstairs. But that still beats where I was living at.
You all had to go downstairs.
No, no, the toilet was out in the yard. I told you the toilet was out in the yard where they had the
lime stuff all around it. It was like a box. Similar to what people have when they are working
outdoors. They had lime stuff all around there. And you had to sweep. When I got home from
school you think you can go along and go in the house? Hell no. When you get home from
school you sweep from the top of the front all the way down the sidewalk out the front, then
come on up and catch it on down to the back and go to the alley. And my old crazy brother Joe
said She done left some dirt out there, you know Joe always been like that, I had to go tell me
daddy, he trying to make it hard from me since they beat him every night. My daddy bust him
open behind. Out there where he got that truck. And he ain't do that no more. To me they didn't
do nothing. And I standed there and watched them. Because I was three years older then both of
them. George was six years young and Joe was three. Yeah. See I was older and I knew
everything. I had to know everything to keep up with them. Because they go and tell lies on you
to other children younger than them because that's what they did. Because they beat them they
wanted them to beat you. They got a beating every night, every other night them two. I don't go
there and ask no question, or touch no television. You were dead then. You think a child would
come in and touch that microwave? No ma'am. They ain't touching nothing of mine. Nothing on
that table. That twenty one cents there. It will sit there til the cows come home, and you better
not touch it. Now you know I'm right. You ain't touching nothing. And people have children
running all around here. We was out there talking just now. And the Chinese girl come in to see
her mother. Got a big girl, wait'll you see the little boy and girl. She got em by this arm, she
holding this hand, she done hollering and screaming and hitting her with something, and then her
mama walked right behind her. See how she is coming up during our time? One of those women
would have grabbed that little girl and busted her hind part open. There weren't nothing to say
about it.
That's right.
Somebody need to reel that little girl in. I ain't seen nothing like it. Her mama was walking right
behind her.
They were paying no attention to her.
They going down there, and then they coming back, they must have had some business down
there around MCV. Somebody seen them down there eating in a car. So they must have had
some business for to get here. You can't come in here with no business. Anyway, they come in
and man, he looked like he was dead tired. You know how you come back looking dead tired? I
said to him, Mister, please go on in before you drop dead. We were sitting on the bench. I said
look at that man so tired he just can't hold himself up. He had his arms like this here. And
instead of going somewhere to sit down and relax. And driving a brand new van. The man had to
be 67 or 70 years old. His hair all white. The average person in here is 75 or older. The average.
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Now I'm what you call a young person in here, 67. With all these people, what do you think
Miss Julia, and she be eighty something, come to check that lady with the red on. Miss Julia, and
who else is in here. They just called that lady's name, but I don't know what her name is. She
just called her, but I never knew what name was, but somebody told me what she named right
now. Anyway, she seventy something years old too. Well, she got a nurse, she just came here the
other day. Or the lady would come here with friends. She's got somebody cleaning up, giving
her a ride.
Let me see, is there anything else we can think of?
I'm trying to think.
You ever go to the group pool?
Yeah, I used to go to the group pool. We used to walk across the railroad tracks. Down to Oak
Street.
They had this little wood trail down there so you could get to Oak Street.
That's why I ain't never learned how to drive. I mean learned how to swim. Some old boy named
Rudolph throwed me into the water and that's what blocked me from ever learning how to swim.
And after I got grown I seen him. And I said Get on out of my face. You know what I'm saying?
Old people fooling with you back then? Yeah, old Rudolph, old big-headed boy.
Do you remember Arthur Ashe living over there next to the swimming pool?
No.
Well, do you remember this Detective named Mr. Ashe used to be down in Moore Street
Church basement during the time that we used to play ten cent [Lucy?]?
What is it now?
Officer Ashe?
I don't remember. I went to Moore Street Church a lot of times, but I went to Sharon and I liked
that better.
No, but I'm talking about...
I remember we used to go there but I don't know all the names. I remember that.
I always try to get somebody else to remember that.
I remember that, but I don't remember what the names is.
I don't know why I associate that with Arthur Ashe. Because we used to go to the
swimming pool every morning from nine to twelve. So there was free time.
I was going to high school when I got throwed in that water.
Well see, at that time I think was was somewhere around nine or ten. Something like that.
And from nine to twelve you could get into the swimming pool free. But after twelve
o'clock you had to pay fifteen cents.
Well I carried Joe and George with me. Because they didn't allow you with no pants or nothing
on in there. And I played basketball. And I ain't never carried any of this stuff home. Cause I
would have gotten skinned alive. My grandmother never let me where a pair of pants. You know
that. I ain't never knowed on Sundays what a pair of pants was til I goed to work and got old.
Snow on the ground, I had to wear them to keep my legs and stuff warm.
They didn't allow you to wear pants to church.
They didn't' allow no girls to wear no pants. I can hear my grandma saying it now. If God had
intended for you to be a boy, you'd have been a boy.
That's true.
That's what the old people tell you. If you was raised back then, then you know that you come
out on top. I always said you'd come out on top if you listen, if you don't listen then you gone.
Yeah, I always been a person who listened. That's why I always caught on to all them jobs I had.
And stayed there. I ain't never been nobody to go running from job to job. Once you get more on
one, you get less on another. And the other one allows you more. Everyone tells me about a job I
inquire about it. That's what I do is move it on. So it was 1975 when I went to Bedford Arms
Jewish nursing home. I said this is the last job for me. I was 42 years old. And I stayed there til
1990, when I was 59. And they told me my leg had to be amputated. And I said if its gotta come
off, there's no need for me to be hesitating. And I ain't never stopped. I got it cut offJuly 14,
1992. September I had a leg. November I was paying somebody for a wheelchair in Atlantic
City. You know I love Atlantic City. That's all I did when I went to work. EiOt in the morning. I
spent day and night up there. I'm going up there again next month, on the 20m. On a Saturday
and Sunday, and coming back on a Tuesday. Got my ticket. I'm going excursion, but I'm
staying.
What grade schools did you go to?
Oh, I forgot Elba Elementary School. Elba. Used to be right in the middle of Marshall Street
across from T&E Laundry. Between Goshen and Hancock on Marshall. Elba Elementary went
from the junior primary through the 6th grade, T& E Laundry was over there.
Tell me something, when y'all finished the 6th grade, where did you go?
I went to Moore School.
That's right. Moore Street had 7th and 8th, right?
No, just 7m. I went to Walker High School for 8m grade in 1948. I was 15 years old.
So how was school for you?
I played basketball. I had to have As and Bs. You didn't play no athletics. Just like they do it
now. You've got to have good grades to play on teams. I stayed in high school four years I just
told you, from '48 to '51.
You played all four years?
Yeah, all four years. After regular basketball, then we had a tournament. The tallest girls I've
ever seen were over there at Union at the Bellen Building, you know that's where they had the
tournaments every year. They had it at the rec. When I first went there they had it at the rec down
on Chamberlayne(?) Avenue. They called it the rec then, I don't know what they're calling it
now. You know what I'm talking about. Jane Moore Peters husband's daughter got married over
there. That recreation place. I don't know what they call it now, but we called it the rec. And
then it was too small. Then they went to the Bellen Building over there at Union.
So what did you all used to do in the summertime, like when you were going to school?
Like after school and during the summer time?
After school and the summertime? I worked a job here on Saturday. Harvey Hudson was on W
Leigh, when he used to be on the radio? He lived at Harrison and Floyd. In a three story house. I
went there every Saturday and cleaned the first, second and third floors. Not really no cleaning
except the bathrooms and the kitchens, and wipe everything off and clean the floors in the
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bathroom and kitchen. They gave me a dollar and a half each Saturday for each floor. And I was
only in high school then. When I first started working I wasn't making but $25 per week,
Monday through Friday. Then I worked Chinese Restaurant. When I didn't work in the daytime.
My mother worked in a Chinese Laundry all her life ironing. And she knew all of them. Joy
Garden on Broad Street up there. And Lotus at Boulevard and Broad. I used to work there til 2 or
3 in the morning from 6 o'clock in the evening. For 5 dollars. Washing the dishes and peeling the
bags of onions. It was a quarter to wash your clothes in the washing machine at the laundromat.
Here its 50 cents. They got washing machines to wash here right on the eighth floor. Washers
and Dryers. Yeah, they got everything, pool table and everything, right in here now. We have
exercise Wednesdays and Mondays, 11 to 11:30. The got a whole calendar.
So where did you all used to shop at, like for clothes?
Our shopping was Charles at First and Broad, Troy's at First and Clay, June Murray's up at
Lombardy and Leigh, and Shirock's down by Brook Avenue and Leigh. Them were the four
places weren't they? Them were the four places we shopped. But the most you'd get was Charles
at First and Broad. You know, like them slouch socks. They had all kinds of slips and stuff but
my grandma was a seamstress, so she cut that paper out and cut mine out. She'd cut it and make
you a brassiere. She'd make you a slip. I made all my skirts that zip up the back out of paper
bags. You know, like grain come in. I made all that stuff going to school. You know. Tie them
here, tie them there. You know, with a doiley. And we could buttonhole. Making denim stuff. I
could sew anything. I took up tailoring at night. At Maggie Walker after I left there. About two
nights a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fifty dollars.
So are these all black shops?
No, they didn't have no black shops. They only thing I remember that black people had was little
shoeshine parlors. That's all they had. You know, where they shine shoes. That's all I remember
being around there.
We had a couple of black restaurants.
Jim Brown's. That was on Broad Street. The 700 block of West Broad. Jim Brown's was a
restaurant. Then he moved from there to his home. Around there on Clay Street. Yeah, Jim
Brown's. A great big heavyset man. About tall as I am, but he was bigger. Yeah, he had a big
restaurant on Broad Street, the only one I remember as being black. And then he moved to his
house. He had a house that had the front porch screened in. He had a restaurant in there. That's
the only one I remember.
That was the only one. We had black shoe shops.
Black people didn't really have nothing.
Not at that time.
And most of them that ran that stuff weren't born here in Richmond.
True.
Them people come from somewhere else. They weren't born here. Because them old people used
to talk about them. That's how you learned what was going on. You weren't in there talking.
Now I and Sharon here, we talk in here, they go on in the other room. You don't ask them
questions. You don't fool around with the wrong people. Your place is in the other room. And
you got something to do. And stuff like that. I remember my grandma saying you can't be
looking down here throat. You can't be looking down my throat. Learning the wrong things.
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Oh. We had Waller Jeweler's down there.
Yeah, Waller Jewelers. Sure is. I got all them bands in my watches there for fifty years. Any time
my band goes I take it there and they just keep putting on another one. Walton Jewelers down
there at First and Broad. Yeah, old man Walton. They had a house jewelry store. You know, they
had a house, and then they put a store on the front of it. In one of them rooms. There at first and
Broad. I got a watch in there I can show you, all the gold done come off it I had it so long. I'm
trying to think. What did Master X have?
I don't know nothing about him.
He was down there on first street, he'd tell people's fortunes for money, that's all I remember.
Master X, yeah. You know, the fortune tellers and stuff.
I never was down at first street except first and Clay.
Yeah, first and Clay. He used to be sitting on a porch with a chair twice as big as this here
Master X.
I don't think I ever saw him. What else was down there?
Second Street. That's where, everybody went for entertainment. That's where all the movies was.
They had the Booker T.
And if there was any black establishments, that's where they were.
Yeah. Down there. And me, I know Eggerson, Eggerson wholesale.
I know they had the Elks Club down there. And the Hippodrome Theater. And the Globe.
If you wanted to go to the movies, that's where you'd go.
That was on Broad Street. Where the Empire is now.
Right. That's about it, I guess. Ain't it. I guess that's about it.
11

Part of a series of interviews conducted as part of a Carver-VCU Partnership project documenting the history of the Carver neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia.

Topics Covered

Nellie Weatherless, a resident of the Carver neighborhood in Richmond, Va., talks her early life in the neighborhood, including recollections of friends and neighbors, Carver landmarks, and changes to the community. She also discusses what life was like in the neighborhood; living conditions; childhood activities; and shops and restaurants in the Carver area.

[Track time: 0:43:54]
CARVER LIVING NEWSPAPER PROJECT: ORAL HISTORY
Interview with Nellie Weatherless
Interviewers Lucy Anne Lucas, Carver resident and Trina Davis, VCU student
Date: April 16, 2000
(Interviewers comments and questions are indicated by bold text)
Who got the questions?
I don't got the questions.
Lord have mercy. I tell you what..You give us your name and where you used to live at.
And how many brothers and sisters you had. And what was around you at that time and
all.
My name is Nellie Weatherless. 1223 West Clay Street.
That's the block down there between Norton and Harrison, right?
Yes. I went to Maggie Walker High School in 1948. And I left there in 1951 when they added
the 12th grade on. See then when they added the 12th grade on I had a high school education, but I
didn't finish at Walker, because I played basketball four years.
What about work?
You could get a job anywhere during those times. But when I got a job, I put an ad in the paper.
That was the telephone for black women at that time. But you didn't want was in the paper
because you'd only make fifty cents an hour. I got a job out of the paper — you know, I put an ad
in the paper and they call in on Sunday, and they take all them down and go see about them on
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And they paid 75 cents an hour. That was in 1952. When I
started to work.
Tell me at that time, how many grocery stores did you have around here in the area?
You had Mr. Green, Mr. Simms, that's Norton and Clay, and then you had Hancock and Clay.
What was that man with the hand? Patio. No Padow's. That used to be down at Hancock and
Clay. Yeah, Patio was there. And then June Murray was up there by Marshall at Hancock and
Marshall. June Murray's Joe Louis Inn. And then they had, what was it, the Electric Power
Company was down at Harrison and Clay.
Yeah, they're still there.
We had Red Circle Store at Harrison and Leigh, Rec Circle Store and Doctor Jackson's black
drugstore.
And we also had another drugstore at Hancock and Clay.
That was Doctor Hurdle. He had one son. Because I used to go down there for my Grandma and
get the medicine. There were Hayjoker and Tomlin & Sons plumbing places on Marshall Street.
And Richmond Ice Company. Harry's Fish Market. Harry's Fried Fish over on the corner.
Everybody remembers that. And that home brewing company was at Harrison and Clay. Where
they made the beer on one side and distributed on the other. Trucks carried it out.
1
Through Way was across the street. That's where the Clay House is now.
Yeah. In the same old building. The whiskey store was at Harrison and Broad on the corner. The
RF&P was where VCU just builded the Siegel Center. Yeah, that used to be RF&P Railroad,
where they unloaded stuff and let the trucks carry them. That was the way they'd distribute.
Trains were running then. Trains were on the other side of the street.
On the other side of the street over there they used to have trucks back up to the place.
Both sides of the street come to think of it. The tracks are still up there. On that other side of the
street across Harrison if they ain't pulled them up.
That's the Cancer Center or something over there now.
And then they had the Ford Motor Company at Hancock and Broad. You know they had the Ford
Car Company there. And then they left and went to Broad.
Yeah, they moved half a block from Hancock to Broad. And right next to that right now
VCU built an arts center.
Yeah, that's all VCU now. Wasn't it right there at Harrison and Broad in back of where the
whiskey store used to be used to be Merrill's restaurant. ,And all them little stores. People's drug
store used to be on Grace Street. And my Grandmom used to go to Lovitt's over there on the 900
block of West Grace to buy the medicine. A little store, it was just like Safeway.
Yes it was. We used to rest on the steps there. Do you remember the trolley used to come
up Clay Street?
Yeah, the street car.
It used to go all the way up to Newtowne, right?
No, it started at Hancock and Broad and went to Sanders(?) and Broad when I rode it.
Okay.
But that was before I growed up. I was a child of 8 or 9. People used to give me their pass or 75
cents to go to the store. They didn't have no money. They'd give you their pass and you ride it,
and they don't let you ride it but two times, you know, all the way down to 7th Street and then
make you go on home. That was before the buses. Then they got buses on Broad Street. And
then they completely cut all of that out around there because there weren't no more black people
living around there.
It looked to me at one time that it used to go either the Riverview or something used to go
down Clay Street and back on up Harrison.
It did. Yeah, the Riverview bus.. It was the only bus around there. All the other buses were on
Broad Street all the time.
And then finally they give us a Leigh Street bus.
Yeah. The Riverview used to come and used to turn at Hancock Street and whirl around and
come on down Harrison.
2
It sure did. Because if you get on that Riverview bus downtown you never could get off at
Harrison and Clay. I had to walk all the way from Broad.
Yeah. And when they started going to Hancock and Clay and coming on around there and
coming on back across Broad Street.
During that time, most of the neighbors we had, it looked like everybody had children.
Yeah. Everybody had kids.
And it wasn't just one or two.
No. Because people that you see they see your children or you see their children, most people
correct the children. Then you tell em about it, they correct em again. When I growed up my
grandmother raised us. Two girls, I was the oldest, and two boys. A sister and three brothers.
And my grandmama raised us, not my mama. But my daddy worked in back of us. He had a
garage where his truck was for Hayjoker where he worked for forty something years. And we
seen him every morning. There was the Tomlin Brothers, they had a plumbing and plumbing
equipment place like Hayjoker and my daddy worked.
Where was Tomlin's?
Right there up by the lost city in the 1300 block. And then they had what was it Freeman Market
up there at Bowe and Marshall. Freeman Marks, where they made men's clothes.
That's right. Tomlin and Sons was across the street from Hayjoker's.
Yeah. And then Freeman Marks was up there, then up there where they had the British factory
and Piccolo's Pickles, where they used to make pickles. Out of watermelon. I don't remember
the name of the place, the British factory, where they make baskets now. They had a watermelon
place. Miss Emma's husband, Mickelburg, Daniel Mickelburg, he used to work with his brother
down where they used to make the watermelon things. We used to go up there, they used to give
us plenty of watermelon. They had all them stores. Pantry Pride up above that, close to the
tracks. Sears & Roebuck. Hydes. All them was up on Broad Street. And there was a White
Tower up there across the corner from that State Planners Bank. I had money in that. And there
was a drug store right across the street there. And Firestone, where they fixed cars on that other
corner at Lombardy and Broad.
Post Office been up there the whole time, I believe?
Yeah, always as long as I can remember the Post Office been there.
And the Firehouse.
Where was it at?
A couple doors up from Wright's drug store?
Oh, right across the White Tower, Yeah, yeah, Wright's Drugstore. There used to be a firehouse,
great big place, just like all of them is now. I don't know why they moved it.
It's a theatre thing now.
I know that now but I don't know why they moved the firehouse.
I know why that is. They moved it up there closer to Newtowne, up there behind Pleasant's
Hardware, back there on that little street.
Oh, that's where they moved it to. Because I know there was one up there behind Brook Avenue
and Lawrence. That's where the museum's at. Where they got all them old trucks and stuff.
3
They moved that old one at put it down here on Leigh Street. They got that at Brook
Avenue and Leigh now.
Oh, at that fireplace.
Yeah, the firehouse that used to be there they moved it down to Leigh Street.
Oh, see I don't go over down there so I didn't know. I know they had all them old trucks there
because they used to have them like a museum up at Marshall Street. But that been a good while
ago. I used to get my hair fixed over on Brook Avenue with a lady who was a Jehovah's
Witness. She's dead now, but Miss. Witch's(?) son's wife knowed her. That's what I done to get
my hair fixed. At that beauty parlor it was five dollars. I done forgot her name. She was old.
Eighty five years old. She died.
I went down there one time. I don't remember what that lady's name was either. [
when I was fourteen or fifteen and got my hair done, and I think it lasted until...
Oh, I know who you talking about. Jude Blanks up on Marshall Street, I mean up on Leigh
Street, the 1300 block.
Yeah, that's it.
Jude Blanks was a dry goods store.
It sure was. We had Jude Blanks and...
{Schriaski's) was at Brook Avenue where the fire station is now.
And we used to have a 5 and 10 over on Grace Street.
I remember that.
Between the 5 and 10 and Jude Blanks, that's where we got everything we needed.
Well my grandmama got Converse's from down Schriaski's on Brook Avenue. Them shoes
didn't cost but a dollar and ninety nine cents. The tennies.
Yeah, and they lasted. They lasted a good while.
They lasted about two, three years. Because I got my leg amputated then and I wasn't hard on
those shoes. I had 65 pairs of shoes when they had to cut my leg off. And now I ain't got but six.
I just bought these for a hundred and forty dollars.
Oh my goodness.
Because they got arch support and stuff in them. For the leg.
Special needs, they got to make them special.
But I'm trying to think of some of these things. The gas place used to be down in the 700 block.
That gas tank thing.
That was Axtel Street.
Axtel, okay. Remember where the gas was before they had the electric. And remember we could
always tell when the gas was going down. The tank would go down.
Yeah, some days it was all the way down to the ground and other days it was all the way up
at the top.
And I remember when the water bill was sixty six cents, because I used to pay it for my mama.
At 1223 our water bill was sixty six cents. They didn't have no sewage and no taxes. They didn't
have none of that. And people paid you what you were worth. Every job I left I left for more
money. I had one year at [?] Food Service at 9th and Terpin, that's with VCU, in 1968, 5:30 to
6:30, and I made one damn dollar and ninety cents an hour. Did you hear what I said? They had
me and the cooks come out to work at 5:30. I remember one year they had two men cook from
11 to 7 and they got three dollars an hour. When I heard that I didn't return. I said here I am
4
doing twice as much work as they're doing. Every job I ever had I left for more money. I cooked
for forty something years.
How did things change once they started this integration stuff? Change for you personally
that is?
In the sixties?
When it got to where you could go into the stores.
It ain't never bothered me to this day. Because I was raised, you got what I'm saying? I was
raised to tend to my own business. And do what you know right from wrong. We was raised like
that. It ain't never bothered me abouty no segregation. Because you got your own friends and
you got yours and I got mine.
That's true.
So it never bothered me.
That's very true.
It ain't never crossed my mind. Now these people who live here, all colors, they ain't never lived
as good as we did. The average person in here, no, and there are 240 people here. You think half
of these people got a front living room that look like this? Hell no, theirs is full of junk, that's all.
Oh I know what I didn't tell you. Up there across from Maggie Walker School was the Marine
and Navy induction center.
Really?
Yeah, at Lombardy and Leigh. That's were they inducted them into the service.
We used to call it the patent office. Or was it the Veteran's administration?
I don't know, I just know they inducted into the Marines and the Navy. Cause that's the first job
I ever had. I was working over there. Yeah, I worked up there doing everybody's job. I worked
for Jordan and Ray. And they had cafeterias in there. Bellwood, McGuire. Then they had a
pantry, you know where the Social Security Administration is at now? That used to be a pantry, I
used to work there you know doing parties and stuff. And Brewster's on Hull Street. Jordan and
Ray used to own all that. That's where I got the ad from out of the paper. Got that job, then I put
another ad in the paper and I got a job cooking down on the boat, you know I worked down at
the boat for 12 years.
Yeah, I knew you worked on a boat, but I didn't know for how long.
Yeah, I worked down there for 12 years.
I had forgotten all about the [?1 because I know my mama used to work up there for a
while in the cafeteria. But she stopped that when she started having babies. There were
nine of us. Let me see, what else can we remember from down there?
My grandmama used to wash clothes for people who lived down on Grace Street. You know
people used to wash shirts and stuff and used to put them on racks. And the other clothes you put
them in baskets and hang them around your arms. And I used to walk all through the tracks,
down Franklin Street, all around over there.
My mama had a maid over on Grace Street she used to do wash for.
My grandmama had two or three people she used to have wash clothes for her. My grandmama
had a stroke in 1943, I was ten years old. She came here and kept us. She used to wash for
Hayjoker when my daddy worked there. You know, the shirts and the pants. When she died, you
5
know who kept washing them? I did, cause I washed them all the time. What was she doing with
this hand if it had a stroke in it? See I was washing and ironing all them people's clothes. She's
sitting there, watching me, "Tuck that in, tuck it out". See cause you listened to them people,
people don't listen to no 0 folks, people don't listen to no old people. Back when I come up I
ain't never had a beating in my life, that's why I remember and know everything. My brothers
used to get beat when they knocked the clothes off and knocked them under the table. But not
me. I know how to listen. I ain't never been nobody hardheaded. Yes sir. Ain't nobody ever
beating me up. If you do you're going away from me. I'll tell you.
During that time too our neighbors, we had school teachers living around us.
Yeah, Miss Eunice. And Lonnie across the street. He was going to college. What was his name. I
can't remember his name now. Real tall. Always acted like a sister to me. Lonnie Gorins.
How about Ms. Castor? What did she used to do?
I just told you. Ms. Castor used to be a school teacher. Her daughter's a schoolteacher now. One
of those girls that's a schoolteacher, your niece knows her. Crystaltown? One of them goes to
her. In the high school. She's named Mable. What's her name?
She named Mable Lightfoot.
Okay, she was named Mable Castor then. They had another child, a car killed him in the street.
Because you can see the rainbow. When I go over to town I remember that. And they didn't
allow my brother and them to go across the street to the store for anybody. Didn't allow them to
cross the street. That's how that child got killed. When it rained it looked like a rainbow in the
street.
Really? Where he got hit at?
Yeah. And when Allen Knight worked around there, he was the first black promoter I ever
knowed. On the radio and all that. Had all the shows. You never hear them talk to anybody but
him.
Who else did you have around that way?
Well, Jake, they lived at the post office. Remember the daddy? He worked at the post office.
Jake married a school teacher. She was the gym teacher for Maggie Walker by the time I
got there.
I didn't know who he married. Yeah, all them people had pretty good jobs.
Yeah, but we also had the poor among us, you know.
Yeah, but when I come up, the toilets were outdoors
That's true.
But then from that time, I don't know five, six years, or seven, or eight, they put them up under
the steps downstairs. That's where they put them. Where Ruby Wills lived at. I don't know
whether Norris had it or not, but where Ruby Wills lived at, you remember the kitchen upstairs
like we had upstairs, they had a bathroom there.
Really?
Yeah, Ruby Wills and them had a bathroom upstairs. I know because I been in it. Yeah, they had
a bathroom. They had two bedrooms and a hall room. And that was there bathroom. You know
with the bath? We had none of that up above. Up that further up we didn't have that. It all
6
depended on different sets of people. Before we moved down there behind the High's at Stafford
and Abbott, white folks lived in them. Yeah, white people lived in those houses. Every house
that ever been around here you didn't build it from the ground, white folks lived in them.
See we lived in apartments. And there weren't much to them apartment.
No, nothing but a bathroom right where you go outdoors, and was on the side where you lived at
upstairs. But that still beats where I was living at.
You all had to go downstairs.
No, no, the toilet was out in the yard. I told you the toilet was out in the yard where they had the
lime stuff all around it. It was like a box. Similar to what people have when they are working
outdoors. They had lime stuff all around there. And you had to sweep. When I got home from
school you think you can go along and go in the house? Hell no. When you get home from
school you sweep from the top of the front all the way down the sidewalk out the front, then
come on up and catch it on down to the back and go to the alley. And my old crazy brother Joe
said She done left some dirt out there, you know Joe always been like that, I had to go tell me
daddy, he trying to make it hard from me since they beat him every night. My daddy bust him
open behind. Out there where he got that truck. And he ain't do that no more. To me they didn't
do nothing. And I standed there and watched them. Because I was three years older then both of
them. George was six years young and Joe was three. Yeah. See I was older and I knew
everything. I had to know everything to keep up with them. Because they go and tell lies on you
to other children younger than them because that's what they did. Because they beat them they
wanted them to beat you. They got a beating every night, every other night them two. I don't go
there and ask no question, or touch no television. You were dead then. You think a child would
come in and touch that microwave? No ma'am. They ain't touching nothing of mine. Nothing on
that table. That twenty one cents there. It will sit there til the cows come home, and you better
not touch it. Now you know I'm right. You ain't touching nothing. And people have children
running all around here. We was out there talking just now. And the Chinese girl come in to see
her mother. Got a big girl, wait'll you see the little boy and girl. She got em by this arm, she
holding this hand, she done hollering and screaming and hitting her with something, and then her
mama walked right behind her. See how she is coming up during our time? One of those women
would have grabbed that little girl and busted her hind part open. There weren't nothing to say
about it.
That's right.
Somebody need to reel that little girl in. I ain't seen nothing like it. Her mama was walking right
behind her.
They were paying no attention to her.
They going down there, and then they coming back, they must have had some business down
there around MCV. Somebody seen them down there eating in a car. So they must have had
some business for to get here. You can't come in here with no business. Anyway, they come in
and man, he looked like he was dead tired. You know how you come back looking dead tired? I
said to him, Mister, please go on in before you drop dead. We were sitting on the bench. I said
look at that man so tired he just can't hold himself up. He had his arms like this here. And
instead of going somewhere to sit down and relax. And driving a brand new van. The man had to
be 67 or 70 years old. His hair all white. The average person in here is 75 or older. The average.
7
Now I'm what you call a young person in here, 67. With all these people, what do you think
Miss Julia, and she be eighty something, come to check that lady with the red on. Miss Julia, and
who else is in here. They just called that lady's name, but I don't know what her name is. She
just called her, but I never knew what name was, but somebody told me what she named right
now. Anyway, she seventy something years old too. Well, she got a nurse, she just came here the
other day. Or the lady would come here with friends. She's got somebody cleaning up, giving
her a ride.
Let me see, is there anything else we can think of?
I'm trying to think.
You ever go to the group pool?
Yeah, I used to go to the group pool. We used to walk across the railroad tracks. Down to Oak
Street.
They had this little wood trail down there so you could get to Oak Street.
That's why I ain't never learned how to drive. I mean learned how to swim. Some old boy named
Rudolph throwed me into the water and that's what blocked me from ever learning how to swim.
And after I got grown I seen him. And I said Get on out of my face. You know what I'm saying?
Old people fooling with you back then? Yeah, old Rudolph, old big-headed boy.
Do you remember Arthur Ashe living over there next to the swimming pool?
No.
Well, do you remember this Detective named Mr. Ashe used to be down in Moore Street
Church basement during the time that we used to play ten cent [Lucy?]?
What is it now?
Officer Ashe?
I don't remember. I went to Moore Street Church a lot of times, but I went to Sharon and I liked
that better.
No, but I'm talking about...
I remember we used to go there but I don't know all the names. I remember that.
I always try to get somebody else to remember that.
I remember that, but I don't remember what the names is.
I don't know why I associate that with Arthur Ashe. Because we used to go to the
swimming pool every morning from nine to twelve. So there was free time.
I was going to high school when I got throwed in that water.
Well see, at that time I think was was somewhere around nine or ten. Something like that.
And from nine to twelve you could get into the swimming pool free. But after twelve
o'clock you had to pay fifteen cents.
Well I carried Joe and George with me. Because they didn't allow you with no pants or nothing
on in there. And I played basketball. And I ain't never carried any of this stuff home. Cause I
would have gotten skinned alive. My grandmother never let me where a pair of pants. You know
that. I ain't never knowed on Sundays what a pair of pants was til I goed to work and got old.
Snow on the ground, I had to wear them to keep my legs and stuff warm.
They didn't allow you to wear pants to church.
They didn't' allow no girls to wear no pants. I can hear my grandma saying it now. If God had
intended for you to be a boy, you'd have been a boy.
That's true.
That's what the old people tell you. If you was raised back then, then you know that you come
out on top. I always said you'd come out on top if you listen, if you don't listen then you gone.
Yeah, I always been a person who listened. That's why I always caught on to all them jobs I had.
And stayed there. I ain't never been nobody to go running from job to job. Once you get more on
one, you get less on another. And the other one allows you more. Everyone tells me about a job I
inquire about it. That's what I do is move it on. So it was 1975 when I went to Bedford Arms
Jewish nursing home. I said this is the last job for me. I was 42 years old. And I stayed there til
1990, when I was 59. And they told me my leg had to be amputated. And I said if its gotta come
off, there's no need for me to be hesitating. And I ain't never stopped. I got it cut offJuly 14,
1992. September I had a leg. November I was paying somebody for a wheelchair in Atlantic
City. You know I love Atlantic City. That's all I did when I went to work. EiOt in the morning. I
spent day and night up there. I'm going up there again next month, on the 20m. On a Saturday
and Sunday, and coming back on a Tuesday. Got my ticket. I'm going excursion, but I'm
staying.
What grade schools did you go to?
Oh, I forgot Elba Elementary School. Elba. Used to be right in the middle of Marshall Street
across from T&E Laundry. Between Goshen and Hancock on Marshall. Elba Elementary went
from the junior primary through the 6th grade, T& E Laundry was over there.
Tell me something, when y'all finished the 6th grade, where did you go?
I went to Moore School.
That's right. Moore Street had 7th and 8th, right?
No, just 7m. I went to Walker High School for 8m grade in 1948. I was 15 years old.
So how was school for you?
I played basketball. I had to have As and Bs. You didn't play no athletics. Just like they do it
now. You've got to have good grades to play on teams. I stayed in high school four years I just
told you, from '48 to '51.
You played all four years?
Yeah, all four years. After regular basketball, then we had a tournament. The tallest girls I've
ever seen were over there at Union at the Bellen Building, you know that's where they had the
tournaments every year. They had it at the rec. When I first went there they had it at the rec down
on Chamberlayne(?) Avenue. They called it the rec then, I don't know what they're calling it
now. You know what I'm talking about. Jane Moore Peters husband's daughter got married over
there. That recreation place. I don't know what they call it now, but we called it the rec. And
then it was too small. Then they went to the Bellen Building over there at Union.
So what did you all used to do in the summertime, like when you were going to school?
Like after school and during the summer time?
After school and the summertime? I worked a job here on Saturday. Harvey Hudson was on W
Leigh, when he used to be on the radio? He lived at Harrison and Floyd. In a three story house. I
went there every Saturday and cleaned the first, second and third floors. Not really no cleaning
except the bathrooms and the kitchens, and wipe everything off and clean the floors in the
9
bathroom and kitchen. They gave me a dollar and a half each Saturday for each floor. And I was
only in high school then. When I first started working I wasn't making but $25 per week,
Monday through Friday. Then I worked Chinese Restaurant. When I didn't work in the daytime.
My mother worked in a Chinese Laundry all her life ironing. And she knew all of them. Joy
Garden on Broad Street up there. And Lotus at Boulevard and Broad. I used to work there til 2 or
3 in the morning from 6 o'clock in the evening. For 5 dollars. Washing the dishes and peeling the
bags of onions. It was a quarter to wash your clothes in the washing machine at the laundromat.
Here its 50 cents. They got washing machines to wash here right on the eighth floor. Washers
and Dryers. Yeah, they got everything, pool table and everything, right in here now. We have
exercise Wednesdays and Mondays, 11 to 11:30. The got a whole calendar.
So where did you all used to shop at, like for clothes?
Our shopping was Charles at First and Broad, Troy's at First and Clay, June Murray's up at
Lombardy and Leigh, and Shirock's down by Brook Avenue and Leigh. Them were the four
places weren't they? Them were the four places we shopped. But the most you'd get was Charles
at First and Broad. You know, like them slouch socks. They had all kinds of slips and stuff but
my grandma was a seamstress, so she cut that paper out and cut mine out. She'd cut it and make
you a brassiere. She'd make you a slip. I made all my skirts that zip up the back out of paper
bags. You know, like grain come in. I made all that stuff going to school. You know. Tie them
here, tie them there. You know, with a doiley. And we could buttonhole. Making denim stuff. I
could sew anything. I took up tailoring at night. At Maggie Walker after I left there. About two
nights a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fifty dollars.
So are these all black shops?
No, they didn't have no black shops. They only thing I remember that black people had was little
shoeshine parlors. That's all they had. You know, where they shine shoes. That's all I remember
being around there.
We had a couple of black restaurants.
Jim Brown's. That was on Broad Street. The 700 block of West Broad. Jim Brown's was a
restaurant. Then he moved from there to his home. Around there on Clay Street. Yeah, Jim
Brown's. A great big heavyset man. About tall as I am, but he was bigger. Yeah, he had a big
restaurant on Broad Street, the only one I remember as being black. And then he moved to his
house. He had a house that had the front porch screened in. He had a restaurant in there. That's
the only one I remember.
That was the only one. We had black shoe shops.
Black people didn't really have nothing.
Not at that time.
And most of them that ran that stuff weren't born here in Richmond.
True.
Them people come from somewhere else. They weren't born here. Because them old people used
to talk about them. That's how you learned what was going on. You weren't in there talking.
Now I and Sharon here, we talk in here, they go on in the other room. You don't ask them
questions. You don't fool around with the wrong people. Your place is in the other room. And
you got something to do. And stuff like that. I remember my grandma saying you can't be
looking down here throat. You can't be looking down my throat. Learning the wrong things.
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Oh. We had Waller Jeweler's down there.
Yeah, Waller Jewelers. Sure is. I got all them bands in my watches there for fifty years. Any time
my band goes I take it there and they just keep putting on another one. Walton Jewelers down
there at First and Broad. Yeah, old man Walton. They had a house jewelry store. You know, they
had a house, and then they put a store on the front of it. In one of them rooms. There at first and
Broad. I got a watch in there I can show you, all the gold done come off it I had it so long. I'm
trying to think. What did Master X have?
I don't know nothing about him.
He was down there on first street, he'd tell people's fortunes for money, that's all I remember.
Master X, yeah. You know, the fortune tellers and stuff.
I never was down at first street except first and Clay.
Yeah, first and Clay. He used to be sitting on a porch with a chair twice as big as this here
Master X.
I don't think I ever saw him. What else was down there?
Second Street. That's where, everybody went for entertainment. That's where all the movies was.
They had the Booker T.
And if there was any black establishments, that's where they were.
Yeah. Down there. And me, I know Eggerson, Eggerson wholesale.
I know they had the Elks Club down there. And the Hippodrome Theater. And the Globe.
If you wanted to go to the movies, that's where you'd go.
That was on Broad Street. Where the Empire is now.
Right. That's about it, I guess. Ain't it. I guess that's about it.
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